In the marked progress being made on information processing systems, there has been rapidly growing, as seen in facsimile communication, the heat transfer technology which thermally transfers information to recording materials such as paper using heat-sensitive media such as heat-sensitive sheets.
It is conceivable to form a printing plate by such heat transfer techniques. Some of proposed heat transfer techniques are those which use laser beams to transfer information to a recording material with a heat-sensitive medium (see Japanese Patent Examined Publication No. 35144/1976). In such proposed laser-based methods for forming printing plates, a heat-sensitive medium having a heat-sensitive layer containing a cellulose-based binder is joined with a recording material, and laser beams are irradiated by signals corresponding to information to be transferred in order to transfer the information thermally to the recording medium, the heat sensitive layer containing the heat-transferred information is then made up into a printing plate. In this method, the resulting printing plate has the transferred heat sensitive layer which is not cured and only a little printing durability.
Printing plates are not a means to only accumulate information transferred thermally; these are for making various printed matters from transferred information. Accordingly, they are required to have a good ink receptivity in order that at the start of printing, they may begin to provide proper printed matters in a shortest time with a minimum paper loss; they are also required to have a printing durability high enough to bear printing in a large amount.